NS Nation Name: me
Character Name: Nathaniel John Mabus
Character Gender: he man
Character Age: 68 (born December 7th, 1938)
Character Height: 6'1
Character Weight: 200 pounds
Character Position/Role/Job:
- Vice President of the United States (since 2001)
- Campaign Director, John Cush for President (2000)
- CEO of Greeley Thorpe (1995-2000)
- United States Secretary of State (1989-1993)
- Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1989)
- United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1985-1987)
- House Minority Whip (1981-1985)
- Representative from Colorado's 5th Congressional District (1973-1985)
- General Counsel of the Department of Defense (1969-1971)
- Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser, Richard Nixon 1968 Campaign (1968)
- Chief of Staff to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1967-1968)
- Deputy Legislative Director to Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel (1964-1967)
- Legislative staffer for Congressman Peter H. Dominick (1960-1964)
Character Country/State of Birth: Glenwood Springs, Colorado
Character State of Residence: Glenwood Springs, Colorado/Washington, D.C.
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Chuck Norris
Main Strengths:
- Despite his staggering unpopularity, Mabus is one of the most potent power players in the Republican party. His ruthless consolidation of behind-the-scenes power across four administrations has culminated in becoming the most powerful Vice President in American history.
- Even his enemies acknowledge that Mabus is one of the foremost experts on foreign policy in Washington. His expertise is frequently sought-after by lawmakers on both sides, and he essentially hand-picked many important staffers in the State Department.
- The closest advisor to President Cush, and sometimes speculated to hold more sway within the Administration than the President himself. While that's up for debate, Mabus definitely has the ear of the President, and has a great deal of influence over hiring, appointments, and access to the POTUS.
- Long, successful career with a massive amount of experience and contacts.
Main Weaknesses:
- Quite literally the most unpopular person in America. Recent polls have shown that only
thirteen percent of American voters have a "Positive or Strongly Positive" opinion of the Vice President.
- Often blamed for orchestrating the War in Iraq and profiting off of it, and the blame for "enhanced interrogation techniques" is entirely his.
- His power playing tendencies have caused a great number of enemies and opponents to appear: those who wish to counter or lessen Mabus' influence over Cush, those who want to cut the RNC free from him, those who simply don't like him and want to watch him lose.
- Combative personality and poor relationship with the press.
- Has occasionally broken publicly with the President: for example, in 2004, he openly came out in support of same-sex marriage, after his beloved grandson Jason came out to him as being gay.
- He worked for
Richard Nixon. He was a personal associate and friend of
Richard Nixon. He helped
Richard Nixon get elected President.
Biography: Nathan Mabus was born at a very young age, on a snowy night on his family's ranch outside Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The Mabus family had settled in the area in the 1870's, led by Alfred Mabus (1845-1930) of Cleveland, Ohio. Alfred was the third son of grocers who had immigrated to America from Bavaria in the 1840's, and he expected little in the way of inheritance. So, he took his wife and children and set off West, settling in the Colorado Territory shortly after coming home from the Civil War. A cautious man by nature, Alfred didn't take part in the frenzy of the Gold Rush at Pike's Peak--instead, he built a proper homestead on the banks of the Colorado River. Alfred had one son, Victor Mabus (1868-1958), who survived to adulthood. His other three children all died before the age of 19: his son Peter of pneumonia, his daughter Rebecca of pneumonia (separately from Peter), and his eldest son Alfred, Junior, was mauled to death by a bear.
Victor became a lawyer, and was a prominent figure in Glenwood Springs' early history, and became acquainted with President Roosevelt while Teddy vacationed at the historic Hotel Colorado in the city. In 1892, Victor married Daphne Pickering, daughter of a railroad worker. They had two sons, Donald (1894-1917) and Steven (1897-1994). Upon Alfred's death in early 1930, Victor inherited the Mabus Ranch.
Donald and Steven were polar opposites. Donald was serious, studious, and dour. He took everything he did with deathly grave seriousness. Steven, however, was a party animal. His favorite activities were carousing in town with the ranch hands and railroad men. However, Steven loved the ranch, while Donald yearned to escape it and see the world beyond. In 1917, Donald--who was then, like his father, studying law--enlisted in the Army during World War One.
In France, a German bullet took Donald's life. He had married in 1914 while studying in Denver, to a young woman named Michelle Ellenberg (1897-1976). Michelle, whose parents had passed shortly before, now a widow at twenty, with one son--Mark Mabus (1915-1997)--and another child on the way, was taken in by Victor and Daphne to live on the ranch. Steven comforted Michelle through her mourning of Donald, and helped raise her children, Mark and Lawrence (1918-2003). The pair gradually fell for one another, and were married in 1922. They had no children of their own, and Steven happily raised his nephews as his own sons.
Mark Mabus is the father of Nathan Mabus. In 1934, he married Eleanor Holmes (1917-2005), daughter of a local banker. Mark and Eleanor have four children: Alfred (1935-present), Isabelle (1936-present), Nathan (1938-present), and Harold (1940-present).
Life on the mountain ranch, surrounded by generations of stoic German men, shaped young Nathan into the man he is today. Opa Victor insisted that his grandsons be educated, and they attended school in Glenwood Springs while also working alongside the ranch hands. Nathan likes to joke that he learnt to ride a horse before he could walk, and how to tie a lasso before he could speak.
In 1955, Nathan left the farm and graduated high school early, enabling him to move south to Gunnison, where he attended Western Colorado University. Here, he obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Politics and Government, and developed an incredible alcoholic addiction. He met and began dating Charlotte Lamont (1938-present), a Gunnison native, while at Western. They started dating in 1956, which was also the year Nathan acquired his alcoholism. Nathan and Charlotte split up in 1957. He skated through the next two years of classes--sleeping late, staying up late, skipping class, fighting and carousing and carrying on--and was about to be kicked out in 1958 when Charlotte dropped back into his life. She found Nathan, passed out in a drunken stupor, on her front porch on a freezing-cold night. Irritated, she dragged her ex-boyfriend inside, threw him on the couch, gave him a blanket, and locked her bedroom door. The next morning, Charlotte served Nathan a hearty breakfast and told him that if he quit drinking, she'd marry him. Obviously, she didn't think he actually would. But, Nathan did what many men do when caught between the allure of alcohol and the promise of sex: turned to God. The Episcopal faith he had grown up with had eluded him over the years, but now--now he threw himself into church, as well as local politics. Nathan quit drinking cold-turkey with the help of the priest, Gregory Kreutzmann, and graduated from Western in 1959.
In the summer of 1959, Nathan and Charlotte married on the ranch outside Glenwood Springs. That autumn, they moved to Washington, D.C., so Nathan could attend law school at Georgetown.
Georgetown was probably the worst time of Nathan's life, outside of alcoholism. The other pupils--the sons of millionaires and Congressmen and the hoi polloi of Washington society--looked down on the dusty, rough and tumble ranch boy from Colorado. Lost and alone in town, Nathan and Charlotte struggled to find their place in D.C.. In 1960, in order to make money and contacts, Nathan fought his way into a job interning for Congressman Peter Dominick of Colorado. He served under Dominick's legislative director, and specialized in foreign policy--something he felt immense fascination towards, having never left Colorado before moving to D.C.--and used this position to help his wife get a job as a secretary for another Colorado congressman. The Mabuses settled in to D.C., and Nathan graduated near the middle of his Georgetown class in 1962. He'd grown close to Dominick in the two years he worked for the Congressman, and got promoted to Deputy Legislative Director when he graduated. Dominick served as a mentor and guide to the young man, and Nathan stuck with his boss when Dominick was elected to the Senate in 1962. While living in D.C., all three of Nathan and Charlotte's children were born: Elaine (1961-present), Jonathan (1963-present), and Samantha (1965-1986).
Nathan continued working diligently for Senator Dominick, slowly becoming something approaching indispensable to the Senator. Although he adored Dominick, when Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel of California made a better offer in 1964, Nathan sprang for it and doubled his salary. Charlotte no longer had to hold a job of her own, and became a full-time, stay at home mother and proper society wife, hosting dinners for the wives of other Congressional staffers and some junior Republican Congressmen. The keen mind and workhorse ethic Nathan had demonstrated while working for Dominick served him well, and Kuchel promoted him to Deputy Chief of Staff in 1967.
Nathan itched to get more involved, to be something other than another faceless bill-drafter in the shadows of power. He convinced Kuchel to put him in contact with the burgeoning Presidential campaign of former Vice President Richard Nixon, where he was hired as Foreign Policy adviser to the candidate. Nixon, who was already well-versed in foreign affairs, nevertheless took a liking to the younger man, and promised to appoint him to a position within government. Nathan and Nixon would have long, circling conversations, in which Nathan would advise Nixon on aspects of his foreign policy promises, act as a go-between for Nixon and his contacts in Congress, and draft policy papers and speeches with the candidate. In turn, Nixon would mentor Nathan in the art of foreign affairs--not just the science of it, which Nathan understood just fine, but the human side of it. Nathan and Nixon became close, and remained so until Nixon's death. As close as one could manage to be to Nixon, anyway, which wasn't very close at all. At Nixon's funeral, Nathan attempted to deliver a speech but began crying halfway through and abandoned the effort. It's been speculated that the early loss of his father and the somewhat distant parenting of his uncle/adopted father has been a major driver of Nathan's life, as he continually latched onto older men and worked himself to the bone attempting to impress them. The Vice President, if asked about these theories, would call them bullshit.
After Nixon won the 1968 election, he began filling up his Cabinet and the many positions within it. He appointed his young, intelligent, workhorse of an adviser to the position of General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Nathan served admirably and quietly in this position for a little under two years, including through the end of the Vietnam War and the bombing of Cambodia.
In 1971 the Mabus family decided to return to the ranch, which was now owned by Nathan's grandfather, Steven Mabus. Nathan and Charlotte paid for a new house to be built near the Big House of the ranch where Steven, Michelle, Mark, Eleanor, and Alfred lived, as well as Alfred's twin daughters and his wife. Nathan quickly ingratiated himself into the local community again, and was recruited by local Republicans to run for the newly created 5th District in the 1972 elections. The 5th was drawn across a massive swathe of mountainous Northern Colorado, and the Republican primary drew a number of more local figures: state legislators, prominent businessmen, conservative activists and farmers. Nathan began the primary with a slight money advantage and the experience of his time in Washington, but had never run for elective office before. He struggled to pull ahead of the pack at first, and turned to his old bosses to help. Dominick and Kuchel both endorsed their former aide, and Dominick campaigned with him and lent him aid from the Senators statewide organization. With Dominick's help, Nathan pulled ahead and won the primary with a thin margin of 31% of the vote.
The 5th had a conservative character to begin with, and the red wave of 1972 helped immensely. The Democratic nominee was a wealthy rancher from Rifle, and the election was long and ugly, with both candidates readily launching attacks at one another. National conditions and turnout were on Nathan's side, though, and he pulled out a 52% win on election day.
In the 93rd Congress, Nathan was seated on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Agriculture committees. He vociferously opposed the Case-Church Amendment and the War Powers Resolution, but was a cosponsor of the Federal Highway Aid Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
A bare few months into Nathan's first term in Congress, the Watergate scandal broke. Nathan, although originally a supporter of Nixon, was forced to admit that he had broken the law after the reveal of the "smoking gun" tape. He privately told Nixon that he could not deny that he deserved impeachment, and that if it came before the House he would vote against the President. This caused a years-long rift in their relationship that only healed in the 1980s.
Obviously, someone closely associated with the disgraced President would have a struggle to be reelected in 1974. Nathan held a press conference, wherein he soundly denounced his former boss. He stated, "Richard Nixon had the trust of America. He had the trust of the people. And he had my trust. In Washington, now, there are many who are saying they never thought something like this could happen--but now, with the clarity of hindsight, I do see it. I see how the man I admired, a man I considered a mentor and a friend, could lie and cheat and deceive the American people. The people's trust in the President has been broken, and so has mine. I only ask that those of us who knew him as a friend and not a criminal be judged fairly."
While his Democratic opponent hammered Nathan again and again on the Nixon issue, Nathan toured the district, touting the work he'd done protecting water for farmers and bringing federal money back to Colorado. In the 1974 election, Nathan narrowly won once more, and was sent back to Congress.
In the 94th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor and supporter of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. He started worming his way into the good graces of Republican leadership, and voted entirely along party lines. With Watergate vanishing in the rearview mirror, he was reelected in 1976 with a solid margin, despite Jimmy Carter's victory in the Presidential election.
In the 95th Congress, Nathan had his first bill become law: the National Energy Conservation Policy Act. He also cosponsored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. At this point, Nathan was appointed a Deputy Whip by Minority Whip Robert H. Michel, and served on the Republican leadership team. He was reelected in the 1978 midterms, as President Carter's popularity declined.
In the 96th Congress, Nathan was a cosponsor of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980, and the Classified Information Procedures Act. He continued voting entirely along party lines, and became an increasing thorn in Jimmy Carter's side, as he was voted Chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee ahead of the 1980 elections.
As Campaign Committee Chairman, Nathan spent a great deal of time and money recruiting Republican candidates to run for the House, as well as boosting them alongside Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan, who Nathan had endorsed early into the primary. With Reagan's coattails and massive victory, the Republicans captured 33 seats in the House. Going into the 97th Congress, Nathan was elected Whip by his fellow Republican Congressmen.
In the 97th Congress, Nathan authored the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981
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